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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26374105">By the Day's First Light</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/callboxkat/pseuds/callboxkat'>callboxkat</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Bad Things Happen Bingo [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sanders Sides (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Human, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Bad Things Happen Bingo: Shaking and Shivering, Blood and Injury, Gen, Major Character Injury, Mild Gore, Near Death Experiences, Supernatural Elements</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 07:42:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,149</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26374105</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/callboxkat/pseuds/callboxkat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In retrospect, Virgil was very glad that his sleep schedule was so messed up. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have even still been awake at three in the morning. As it was, he nearly missed the knock at his door.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Anxiety | Virgil Sanders &amp; Logic | Logan Sanders</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Bad Things Happen Bingo [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1858819</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>55</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>By the Day's First Light</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In retrospect, Virgil was very glad that his sleep schedule was so messed up. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have still been awake at three in the morning, watching conspiracy videos on the TV he’d picked up for twenty bucks at a thrift shop.</p><p>Even as it was, Virgil nearly missed the knocking. It was very quiet, and after only four repetitions, was gone.</p><p>Virgil, ever the paranoid one, paused the video he’d been halfway through even though he was only half sure he’d heard anything at all. His gaze went to the door, and he frowned.</p><p>After a moment, he heard a muffled thump. Virgil set the remote to the side and hesitantly approached the front door. He paused, his hand reached out for the handle, then bolted to the kitchen for a knife.</p><p>(Maybe he was overreacting.)</p><p>(But maybe he wasn’t.)</p><p>Back at the door and armed this time, Virgil reached up and slid the cover off of the peep hole. He hesitated again as the image of someone stabbing his eye out through the hole flashed in his mind, then gritted his teeth and looked out anyway, his knife clutched at his side.</p><p>It was very dark—of course it was, it was freaking three in the morning—so he couldn’t see much, but there was definitely someone out there. Their head was bowed, and they seemed to be facing slightly away from the door. But that was about as much detail as Virgil could parse.</p><p>(He really needed to get the porch light fixed, he’d been putting it off for weeks, why the <em>hell </em>hadn’t he gotten it fixed?)</p><p>Virgil hesitated, briefly debated calling the cops, then decided he wasn’t looking to get himself or anyone else shot that night just because he was afraid to open a door.</p><p>He unlocked it, leaving the latch in place, and opened the door an inch.</p><p>At the sound of the door opening, the figure turned to look at him. The figure who suddenly looked very familiar.</p><p>“…Logan?” Virgil said, shocked.</p><p>The faint, blueish light from the paused television fell across his friend’s face.</p><p>The first thing Virgil noticed was that his friend’s eyes were wide and blank with shock, and his whole frame shook despite the warm night air.</p><p>The second thing Virgil noticed was the <em>blood</em> that dripped down from his mouth, and—</p><p>And soaked the jacket that Logan held pressed to his <em>neck</em>.</p><p>“Oh my god!” Virgil yelled, the knife falling from his hand with a clatter.</p><p>Logan flinched back, taking a clumsy step away from the door.</p><p>Virgil reached out and grabbed his arm—the one not possibly <em>holding his neck together</em>—to stop him. His skin was freezing. How long had he been outside? “No, no—I’m sorry, you stay here. It’s okay, I’m calling 911.” Virgil pressed his hand over the one Logan already had over his neck, pulling his friend inside. “Come on, come inside.”</p><p>“No,” Logan said faintly.</p><p>“No, you’re not coming in? What, you want to wait for them on the porch? I need to grab my phone, it’s on the table—”</p><p>“No 911,” Logan rasped.</p><p>“Logan, you’re literally holding a bloody jacket against your f*cking neck, of course I’m calling—”</p><p>“No!” Logan started pulling away, shaking harder, fighting him.</p><p>“Okay, okay, fine!” Virgil said in an alarmed voice, afraid that the pressure would come off his friend’s neck, and terrified of what that could cause. “Just come in here and sit down, and tell me what happened, and—and <em>don’t f*cking die in my living room</em>.”</p><p>Virgil pulled Logan inside and flicked on the lights, making Logan flinch again, squinting painfully in the sudden light.</p><p>“What the hell happened?” Virgil asked, sitting him on the couch and looking him over before his eyes had even properly adjusted.</p><p>“I was….” Logan let his words trail off, making no effort to continue.</p><p>Virgil reached for Logan’s neck, came up short, and shook his head. “Wait, actually, don’t talk. Let me look at this.”</p><p>Virgil’s hands shook as he finally put them on the jacket on Logan’s neck. The jacket felt wet to the touch. He hesitated, then started to peel it back, ready to slam it back into place in a flash. The jacket hardly budged, although Virgil swore he was trying to pull it back as hard as he could.</p><p>(F*ck, he couldn’t do this! He wasn’t a doctor!)</p><p>“Are you sure you don’t want to go to a hospital?” Virgil asked, staring at where his numb hands gripped the bloody jacket. “I really think we should go to a hospital.”</p><p>“No hospitals,” Logan insisted.</p><p><em>F*ck it, he passes out, I’m calling an ambulance</em>, Virgil decided. “Okay,” he said aloud. “You’ve, um, you’ve gotta move your fingers. A little bit.”</p><p>Logan’s hand shifted, and Virgil gingerly peeled back the jacket, his heart racing, and gasped.</p><p>A jagged wound marred the otherwise smooth skin of Logan’s neck, like someone had carved a chunk out of it. Or ripped it out.</p><p>But… while it was definitely bleeding, it didn’t look like it was bleeding <em>out</em>. It even looked like the flow of blood was slowing as he watched. Which might have been wishful thinking on Virgil’s part, but he could have sworn it was true.</p><p>Virgil let out a nervous laugh, making Logan’s gaze drift in his direction. “I, um… I have no freaking clue how, but… I think it must’ve missed the arteries.”</p><p>(Or was that veins? …Arteries. He was pretty sure. The things that generally <em>killed you</em> if someone ripped a freaking hole in your neck.)</p><p>“That’s good,” Logan said mildly.</p><p>Virgil swallowed, looking away from the injury, not wanting to look at it any longer or more closely than he had to. “Yeah. Um, yeah. That’s really good. It’s great. But, dude, this….” Virgil covered the ugly wound again with the jacket, only partially to keep the pressure on. “This has got to need stitches. Are you <em>sure</em> you don’t want to go to a hospital?”</p><p>Logan shook his head, making Virgil let out an alarmed yelp.</p><p>“No hospitals,” he repeated. “First aid kit. Your hiking one?”</p><p>Virgil paused. He <em>did</em> have a pretty well stocked first aid kit, including what he’d need to do stitches, for when their friend group went on hikes on the weekends in the spring and summer. But he didn’t know how to do stitches—those supplies were for <em>Logan</em> to use! And this wasn’t just a little cut!</p><p>“Go get it,” Logan requested, still speaking in that mild, detached manner, like he wasn’t quite there, not completely.</p><p>Virgil hesitated, then grabbed a blanket off the back of the couch and wrapped it around Logan, avoiding his neck.</p><p>(He was pretty sure that was something you did for people in shock, and he was also pretty sure that Logan was in shock.)</p><p>“Wait here,” Virgil said, getting to his feet. “And don’t die.”</p><p>He made it back with the first aid kit in record speed. Logan was where he had left him, sitting on the couch, staring blankly ahead. One side of the blanket had fallen down, but Logan held the other in place with white knuckles.</p><p>“I’ve got it,” Virgil said, putting it on the coffee table and kneeling before Logan. “Let me… Damn it, I don’t know how to do this, Logan, I can’t—”</p><p>“I’ll tell you what to do,” Logan said.</p><p>Virgil hesitated, then set his jaw and opened the first aid kit. They didn’t have time to keep arguing. It was worth a shot, right? The worst he could do was kill his friend.</p><p>As Virgil worked, Logan rambled off instructions in a dull, lifeless voice, like he was reciting a textbook from memory. Virgil suspected that he was.</p><p>Finally, he was done. It was not the prettiest sewing job; but he’d managed not to throw up; and the insides of Logan’s neck were on the inside, where they were supposed to be; so he counted it as a win.</p><p>“Thank you,” Logan said softly, watching as Virgil put the supplies on the table, to be washed later when he was done panicking.</p><p>“What the hell happened? Are you hurt anywhere else? F*ck, your mouth—” Virgil’s hand flew to Logan’s jaw, where now-dried blood dripped from his lips and down his chin.</p><p>“Not mine,” Logan said, staring blankly in the direction of the TV screen.</p><p>“Not—what?” Virgil yanked his hand back, somehow even more horrified.</p><p>“I don’t know what happened,” Logan said in the same empty tone. His gaze slid over to Virgil, and his voice grew more pleading. “What happened?”</p><p>Virgil shook his head, staring. He glanced at his phone, sitting on the table, just waiting for Virgil to dial 911.</p><p>“I was walking home from my night class,” Logan remembered. “I took a shortcut.” He paused. “He was….” Logan swallowed. “He….” He gestured at the probably overly thick coating of bandages Virgil had put on his neck.</p><p>“He did that to you?” Virgil prodded, dimly noting that Logan’s night class had ended at nine. <em>Not</em> three in the morning.</p><p>Logan swallowed. “Yes,” he breathed. “I… There was so much blood. Everywhere. And….” He shuddered. “And I thought I was done for, but… I bit him, hard as… hard as I could. And….” He frowned, then touched his head. Virgil only then noticed the edge of a bruise poking out from under his hairline. “And… and I came here, because you were closest.”</p><p>“We’re taking you to a hospital.”</p><p>“No,” Logan insisted.</p><p>“You’ve got a cut on your neck, some mugger’s blood is all over your face, and I’m pretty sure you’ve got a concussion; yes, we’re going to the hospital!”</p><p>Logan surged forward and clutched desperately at the front of Virgil’s shirt, staring at him with wide, pleading eyes. “No. No, I can’t—they won’t believe me.”</p><p>Virgil’s mouth had opened in shock at Logan’s vehemence. “I’m pretty sure they’ll believe you got <em>mugged</em>,” he said, as wide-eyed as Logan.</p><p>Logan shook his head, let go, and clutched the blanket around himself. He mumbled something to himself, something that sounded like, “His teeth….”</p><p>Virgil fidgeted, unsure what to do. He could call his friends, but he knew they would be long asleep by now, and probably wouldn’t even see the notification until morning at the earliest.</p><p>He settled for a text, showing Logan the phone to prove he wasn’t dialing 911.</p><p>Unsure what else to do other than hope Logan didn’t die from his neck wound reopening or from some other injury Virgil didn’t know about because he <em>wasn’t a freaking doctor</em> and he didn’t exactly trust Logan to tell him if there was one, Virgil got up and got a washcloth, dampening it and bringing it to Logan to clean up his face. He also handed over a large glass of water.</p><p>Logan cleaned up his face, put the dirty washcloth in the gallon-sized plastic bag Virgil held out (for evidence), and then drained the cup, not saying a word the entire time. It seemed he was done talking, content to stare at nothing.</p><p>Virgil wished he knew how to help.</p><p>(He could help by calling a f*cking ambulance.)</p><p>(Logan might hate him forever if he called.)</p><p>(Logan might get worse if he didn’t call. A lot worse)</p><p>(Logan might also freak out, tear his stitches, and die if Virgil <em>did</em> call.)</p><p>Virgil buried his face in his hands.</p><p>Ten minutes of awkward silence, self-loathing, and fear later, Virgil noticed that Logan’s head had started to loll forward, his eyes half shut and unfocused.</p><p>Virgil sat up straight immediately. “Logan—Logan!”</p><p>Logan jerked, his eyes immediately on Virgil, confused and alarmed.</p><p>(F*ck. He’d just been falling asleep, hadn’t he? )</p><p>(Of course he was, it was past five in the morning. Logan usually got up for the day around now, and he hadn’t had any sleep. Because being knocked unconscious sure didn’t f*cking count.)</p><p>(<em>Could</em> he let Logan sleep, with that head wound?)</p><p>Virgil deliberated for a long moment, glanced over at the miserable looking young man at his side, then stood and silently pulled Logan to his feet. “Come on,” he said, guiding Logan to his bedroom. He shoved the clothes off of the usually unoccupied side of it and pulled back the blankets. Logan got in compliantly.</p><p>Virgil turned off the light, lay down on the other side of the bed, set an alarm for an hour later (he wanted to wake Logan every hour, just to make sure he still <em>could</em>).</p><p>When it went off, Virgil hadn’t slept a wink.</p><p>He reached over and touched Logan’s arm—he was still so <em>cold</em>, even with Virgil’s mass of blankets—to rouse him. “Logan?” he asked, nervous.</p><p>Logan immediately jerked awake, scooting back, nearly falling from the bed before he abruptly stopped, staring at Virgil. Recognition flickered in his eyes, and some of the tension left his frame.</p><p>“Sorry—sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. You didn’t open the stitches, did you?”</p><p>Logan’s hand went to his neck, and he hesitated, then shook his head minutely. “Don’t think so,” he whispered.</p><p>“Are you… okay?” Virgil cringed. What a dumb question.</p><p>Logan just nodded, not seeming to mind, and lay back down.</p><p>Virgil set another hour-long timer, and went back to not-sleeping.</p><p>Thankfully, Logan didn’t startle as much the next time Virgil woke him. He still seemed afraid, but not quite so… shell-shocked.</p><p>Reassured, Virgil went back to bed. He even managed to fall asleep, this time.</p><p>When he woke up, the other side of the bed was empty. The curtains, drawn tight across the windows as usual, hardly let any light into the room, but Virgil could see well enough to know his friend was gone. He sat bolt upright in the bed, looking around.</p><p>“Logan?!”</p><p>There was a noise from the hall.</p><p>Virgil relaxed slightly, but not completely. He got out of bed and padded out into the hall, looking around for Logan and hoping he wouldn’t find him passed out on the floor.</p><p>Logan was not, in fact, passed out on the floor. Instead, he stood just inside the bathroom, the door open, his hands gripping the porcelain sink. He was trembling, his skin the sort of pale it usually only got mid-winter.</p><p>“Logan?”</p><p>Logan turned, and there were tears in his eyes—pinkish tears. The bruise on his head had nearly faded away.</p><p>“Don’t come any closer,” he croaked. “Something’s wrong.”</p><p>Virgil, who had been walking closer, wanting to help, instead froze in his tracks.</p><p>For in Logan’s mouth, where there had once been a pair of dull canines, were a pair of sharp, white fangs.</p><p>Virgil’s mouth went dry. “I… you….”</p><p>“It doesn’t make sense,” Logan said, shaking his head. He turned back to the mirror, taking in his reflection. More pinkish tears appeared. “It doesn’t make sense.”</p><p>Virgil would later be rather ashamed of what he did next. He bolted. The next thing he knew, he was in his room, locking the door behind himself. He even opened the curtains, sending dust everywhere, and more importantly, letting light flood into the room.</p><p>He stayed there for the rest of the day, clutching the lamp from his bedside table like it was a weapon, his mind full of static.</p><p>That night, when he finally emerged, still wielding his lamp, Logan was gone. The medical supplies he’d used on Logan had been cleaned and packed neatly back into the kit. Virgil stared at the red box for a long moment, ultimately leaving it where it sat.</p><p>There were new messages on his phone, texts from Patton and Roman, asking what was going on. Virgil had told them Logan had been mugged, but no more detail.</p><p>He left them on read.</p><p>Two weeks later, still with no sign of one of his best friends and mounting questions from his other two best friends, Virgil didn’t know what to do.</p><p>He’d had some time to think things over, and he was undeniably ashamed.</p><p>Maybe Logan was a vampire—as impossible as the idea should have been—but he was still Virgil’s friend. He was still <em>Logan</em>. And he needed help.</p><p>Virgil sat down in his room, and after a long, long hesitation, he called him.</p><p>He was shocked when Logan picked up.</p><p>“Hello, Virgil,” a calm, steady voice answered.</p><p>Virgil swallowed. His voice was not so steady as he responded. “Hi, Logan.”</p><p>A beat passed.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Virgil said, unsure what else he could possibly say, how he could make up for what he’d done. “I just… I panicked.”</p><p>“It’s fine,” Logan said.</p><p>“It’s… what? I just ditch you, after <em>that</em>, don’t talk to you for weeks, and it’s fine? You haven’t even talked to Roman. You haven’t talked to <em>Patton</em>.”</p><p>There was a shuffling noise on the other side of the phone. “I admit I was at a loss for what to tell them.” The steadiness in his voice wavered. “I’m… having a tough time, coming to terms with things.”</p><p>Virgil swallowed. “Yeah, I get that.” He folded his legs up on the bed with him. “Are you, like… good?”</p><p>“My neck appears to have healed itself,” Logan said. “I took the stitches out. There’s barely a scar.”</p><p>“…Yeah,” Virgil said. Good news about being a cryptid, he supposed. “I get why you didn’t want to go to a hospital, now.” He shifted. “And what about…?”</p><p>“I’m adjusting,” Logan said. “It appears I will have to be nocturnal, for starters.”</p><p>“Nocturnal?” Was the sunlight thing real?</p><p>“I burned myself trying to leave your house,” Logan admitted. “Just my hand, thankfully. But, the sun… I can’t go out in it. And I am certain I will have other, ah, accommodations to make…. I never imagined catching a  rabbit, certainly not for that purpose… but….” Logan trailed off, and Virgil imagined him shaking his head. “None of this feels real. And I don’t know the first thing about—about this.”</p><p>Logan never had been a fan of monster movies. It made sense that he’d be completely lost, even aside from the whole <em>vampires-are-supposed-to-be-fictional</em> thing. Virgil thought about his large cache of those movies, and his playlist of cryptid videos. He had a few vampire ones on there, for sure.</p><p>“I might be able to help,” he offered.</p><p>There was silence on the other end of the phone. Then, tentatively hopeful, “Are you sure?”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“You aren’t… afraid of me?”</p><p>Virgil recalled his reaction to Logan’s… transformation… with a wince. But this was still Logan, he reminded himself. Still his friend.</p><p>“No,” he said firmly. “I’m not afraid. I’ll help you.”</p><p>A relieved sigh sounded on the other end of the call. Logan’s calm façade crumbled, and his voice broke. “Thank you, Virgil. I would appreciate that quite a lot.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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